Scaremongering damages the credibility of real ecological research, says robert matthews |
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For fundamentalists, few sins are more grave than that of apostasy. So spare a thought for Professor Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia, who has gone over to the Dark Side and spoken out about scare- mongering over global warming.
According to Prof Hulme, the climate change debate has become "negative, depressive and reactionary", with environmentalists vying to find ever more apocalyptic visions of the future. He singles out Tony Blair and government scientists for perpetuating the most egregious claims about the impact of global warming, and accuses The Independent of indulging in "megaphone journalism".
Coming from the director of the respected Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, this may sound like Ian Paisley saying the IRA deserve a hearing. In fact, Prof Hulme has not changed his belief in the reality or seriousness of climate change. He has simply
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| ‘We have to offer up scary scenarios and make little mention of any doubts’ |
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had enough of eco-fundamentalists hijacking the scientific agenda.
He is not alone. Dr Tim Palmer, one of Britain's leading experts on climate modelling, last week also warned that "hyping can be dangerously counter-productive".
Criticism of posturing politicians and right-on journalists is certainly richly deserved. Their scaremongering runs a real risk of convincing reasonable people it is simply too late to avoid climatic calamity.
But there has been no shortage of academics all too happy to talk up the threats in the belief that the ends justifies the means. Way back in the late 1980s, the influential climate change expert Prof Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, confessed: "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have." He added that he hoped there was a balance between between "being effective and being honest".
Twenty years on, he and his fellow climate scientists are struggling to be either. 
FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 8, 2006
 The UK government's Stern report on the economics of climate change
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